All That Remains
by TheMightyZan
Summary: It was all for her.


**This isn't a happy story. Though funnily enough it is much closer to my usual stories than any of my other fanfiction is.**

**Again, this isn't happy, but I still hope you enjoy!**

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Her eyes… They were perfect.

Everything was.

He leaned down to bury his nose in her hair, ignoring the wet trails that traced her cheek. She was sad, but she didn't know. Didn't know how important she was, how perfect she was.

She kept talking about her daughter. She would come. She would save her. He laughed at the thought. Didn't she know that she was meant for so much more than simply wasting away in her Hightown mansion, hidden from the world and playing house maid to her overly busy offspring?

He would show her what she could become.

He parted his lips to trail his tongue along the seam of her mouth, following her movements as she twisted away from him, delving his tongue in for a brief moment as she opened her lips to cry out.

She gagged a bit and shook her head back and forth, pulling helplessly at the bonds that held her down, and he reached up to catch her chin and hold her still, taking his time in tasting her.

Warm and soft.

Yes, perfect.

He didn't touch her body, it was not right, but did run a hand over her throat as he stood and looked for his tools. He was ready for the next part.

She screamed for a brief moment during the initial cutting, and he laughed, a bit giddily, at the noise. He hadn't made it quick or easy, no, he wanted to savor it. So he used a slow pull and push of his knife through her skin as he watched the red pool up and out over her lily white throat.

He savored the gurgling sound that accompanied the red foam that rose from her lips, and he swayed slightly with his cutting, eyes drifting closed as he pictured the bright red lips of his wife, and heard, instead of death, a bubbling laugh that made his toes tingle.

So close.

He was so close.

He set the knife to the side and traced a blood coated finger over her cheek, smearing red over the color drained skin, and under the sightless blue eyes.

Sightless, yes, but not for long.

He lifted her head, brushing the hair reverently from her brow. She looked even more like herself now. Now that she wasn't attached to the wrong form. He tucked her into the crook of his arm, as careful as if she were a new born babe that needed tending and took her to the wash basin.

He dunked her a few times, rubbing at the jagged line of her throat, and tinting the water a dull pink. He pushed her under a final time, and stared through the cloudy water into her serene face. A face he had seen every day for years, whispering to him, calling for him to save her.

He finally would.

The sewing took a while.

He didn't want to damage her more than he had to.

Didn't want to hurt her now that she was coming together.

He had trimmed up the ragged edges of his cuts, and made sure each stitch was even, each only a small black mare on her perfect throat.

Finally.

Finally.

He stared down at her, her lithe body clad in her wedding dress, her veil covering her hair.

So beautiful.

His palms itched with the need to touch her, and he let himself do so, swiping his palm down her arm, before he turned to begin the ritual.

Cutting into his wrist, he watched as the blood shot up and around him, swirling in dark wet tendrils that caressed his body like a lover might. The words fell from his tongue, burning to ash as they seeped into her pores.

He pictured her. He pictured her smile, her laugh, her hands playing over him as she stared at him with mischievous eyes. He pictured her leaning forward to whisper to him, her breath a warm puff against the shell of his ear.

It blinded him, caught him up, and he missed the wind around him dying, the air filling once more with the putrid smell of death and decay.

He didn't notice it. All he noticed was the stilted gasp that came from the body in front of him.

He slitted his eyes open to see her struggling to breathe, her chest convulsing with the effort. He stumbled toward her, hands reaching almost blindly for hers, words of comfort tumbling from his lips.

It had worked.

He sobbed into her stomach, his fingers clenching rhythmically into the fabric of her dress. It worked.

It worked.

It worked.

The words repeated themselves like a mantra in his mind, and he sobbed again when he felt a tentative hand brush over his head.

Finally he pulled himself away from her, hands automatically moving to smooth his robes, oblivious to the smell of blood and sweat that floated from him.

He wanted to look his best.

He helped her to stand up, relishing the weight of her as she slumped unsteadily into his arms. He stared down into her eyes, lost in the depth of them. He didn't see the milk white film that was beginning to cover them; instead he saw eyes that were bright blue and sparking with humor. He pulled her into a hug, envisioning warmth where there was only icy stiffness, and rubbed his mouth over blue tinged skin that he knew in his mind was glowing with a rosy blush.

He twirled her in a haphazard circle, his mind drifting back to their wedding day and the way she had seemed to fly in his arms.

So many memories.

So many more to make.

A second chance.

He moved his lips to hers, feeling the sweet brush of her tongue as his rubbed over the lump that laid like a dead thing in her mouth. He tasted flowers and sunshine, not the coppery flavor of blood or the acidic taste of bile.

Hearing a noise he lifted his head begrudgingly from hers.

Fighting.

So the daughter had come after all.

He settled his love into a chair and waited.

Waited for the sound of desperate running, the heaving breathes as the group appeared before him in the room.

She looked nothing like her mother.

It was a pleasant surprise.

He tried to explain.

Tried to get them to see that now Leandra was part of something greater than ever before. She was instrumental in reuniting the greatest love of their time.

They attacked anyway.

He laughed, once more giddily amused, heart swelling with love, as she fought for him.

Fought to protect him.

Love truly was the greatest of all gifts.

When he was struck down it wasn't the pain that had him crying out. It was the acute awareness of their severed connection. He wouldn't be able to keep her alive if he was dead.

He watched, black tingeing the corners of his vision, as she stumbled into the daughter's arms.

He watched as the daughter cried, and longed to cry out himself. Didn't she realize what she had destroyed?

He reached out a hand, just managing to touch her stiff, cold fingers as the darkness engulfed his vision.

They didn't seem to notice him.

Didn't seem to care.

He reminded himself that he could still see her again. That she might still be there to meet him on the other side.

His thoughts drifted away from him, winging toward the sky, her name a prayer that died on his tongue.

It was always for her.


End file.
